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Native
American Voices
Introduction:
Part IV
"Kill the Indian and Save the Man"
In 1879, an army officer named Richard H. Pratt opened a boarding
school for Indian youth in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. His goal: to
use education to uplift and assimilate into the mainstream of
American culture. That year, 50 Cheyenne, Kiowa, and Pawnee arrived
at his school. Pratt trimmed their hair, required them to speak
English, and prohibited any displays of tribal traditions, such
as Indian clothing, dancing, or religious ceremonies. Pratt's
motto was "kill the Indian and save the man."
The
Carlisle Indian School became a model for Indian education. Not
only were private boarding schools established, so too were reservation
boarding schools. The ostensible goal of such schools was to teach
Indian children the skills necessary to function effectively in
American society. But in the name of uplift, civilization, and
assimilation, these schools took Indian children away from their
families and tribes and sought to strip them of their cultural
heritage.
By
the late nineteenth century, there was a widespread sense that
the removal and reservation policies had failed. No one did a
more effective job of arousing public sentiment about the Indians'
plight than Helen Hunt Jackson, a Massachusetts-born novelist
and poet. Her classic book A Century of Dishonor (1881),
recorded the country's sordid record of broken treaty obligations,
and did as much to stimulate public concern over the condition
of Indians as Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin did to
raise public sentiment against slavery or Rachel Carson's Silent
Spring did to ignite outrage against environmental exploitation.
Ironically, reformers believed that the solution to the "Indian
problem" was to erase a distinctive Indian identity.
During
the late nineteenth century, humanitarian reformers repeatedly
called for the government to support schools to teach Indian children
"the white man's way of life," end corruption on Indian
reservations, and eradicate tribal organizations. The federal
government partly adopted the reformers' agenda. Many reformers
denounced corruption in the Indian Bureau, which had been set
up in 1824 to provide assistance to Indians. In 1869, one member
of the House of Representatives said, "No branch of the federal
government is so spotted with fraud, so tainted with corruption...as
this Indian Bureau." To end corruption, Congress established
the Board of Indian Commissioners in 1869, which had the major
Protestant religious denominations appoint agents to run Indian
reservations. The agents were to educate and Christianize the
Indians and teach them to farm. Dissatisfaction with bickering
among church groups and the inexperience of church agents led
the federal government to replace church-appointed Indian agents
with federally-appointed agents during the 1880s.
To
weaken the authority of tribal leaders, Congress in 1871 ended
the practice of treating tribes as sovereign nations. To undermine
older systems of tribal justice, Congress, in 1882, created a
Court of Indian Offenses to try Indians who violated government
laws and rules.
Native
Americans at the Turn of the Century
As the nineteenth century ended, Native Americans seemed to be
a disappearing people. The 1890 census recorded an Indian population
of less than 225,000, and falling. The prevailing view among whites
was that Indians should be absorbed as rapidly as possible into
the dominant society: their reservations broken up, tribal authority
abolished, traditional religions and languages eradicated. Late
nineteenth-century federal policy embodied this attitude. In 1871
Congress declared that tribes were no longer separate, independent
governments. It placed tribes under the guardianship of the federal
government. The 1887 Dawes Act allotted reservation lands to individual
Indians in units of 40 to 160 acres. Land that remained after
allotment was to be sold to whites to pay for Indian education.
The
Dawes Act was supposed to encourage Indians to become farmers.
But most of the allotted lands proved unsuitable for farming,
owing to a lack of sufficient rainfall. The plots were also too
small to support livestock.
Much
Indian land quickly fell into the hands of whites. There was to
be a twenty-five-year trust period to keep Indians from selling
their land allotments, but an 1891 amendment did allow Indians
to lease them, and a 1907 law let them sell portions of their
property. A policy of "forced patents" took additional
lands out of Indian hands. Under this policy, begun in 1909, government
agents determined which Indians were "competent" to
assume full responsibility for their allotments. Many of these
Indians quickly sold their lands to white purchasers. Altogether,
the severalty policy reduced Indian-owned lands from 155 million
acres in 1881 to 77 million in 1900 and just 48 million acres
in 1934. The most dramatic loss of Indian land and natural resources
took place in Oklahoma. At the end of the nineteenth century,
the Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, and Creek nations held half
the territory's land. But by 1907, when Oklahoma became a state,
much of this land, as well as its valuable asphalt, coal, natural
gas, and oil resources, had passed into the possession of whites.
Revivalization
and Renewal
During the 1920s, however, federal Indian policy began to shift
away from its longstanding emphasis on assimilation. This shift
was due in large measure to a reformer named John Collier, whose
career illustrates in vivid terms the difference that one person's
life can make. After conducting an investigation of Indian living
conditions for the General Federation of Women's Clubs in 1922,
Collier became a staunch advocate of preserving tribal cultures
and lands. He helped convince the Rockefeller Foundation to fund
the Meriam Commission, a comprehensive investigation of federal
Indian policies. The commission found that half of all Indians
owned less than $500 worth of property and that 71 percent lived
on less than $200 a year. The commission blamed Indian poverty
on misguided public policies.
When
Franklin D. Roosevelt became president in 1933, he named Collier
commissioner of the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a post he held until
1945. As commissioner, Collier led "the Indian New Deal"--wide-ranging
efforts to extend New Deal relief and job programs to Native Americans
and stop the sale of Indian reservation land. A special Indian
Emergency Conservation work group was established which employed
Indians in programs of soil erosion control, irrigation, and land
development. The 1934 Johnson-O'Malley Act promoted cooperation
between the federal and state governments in improving Indian
agriculture, education, and health care. The Indian Reorganization
Act, also passed in 1934, encouraged reservation Indians to take
a more active role in managing their own affairs, by providing
for the election of tribal councils to represent the tribes with
state and federal governments. Funds were also allocated to provide
scholarships for Indian students and help Indians establish their
own businesses.
World
War II brought profound changes to Indian lives, as tens of thousands
left reservations to serve in the military and work in wartime
industries. In 1943 alone, over 46,000 took jobs off reservations
in shipyards, lumbering, canneries, mines, and farms. Over 24,000
served in the armed forces--over a third of all Indian men between
18 and 50. Unlike African Americans, Indians were not confined
to separate military units, performing all kinds of military duties.
This policy increased theintegration of many Native Americans
into the dominant currents of American society.
Perhaps
the most unique Indian contribution to the war effort was the
development of a secret military code. During the war, Navajo
radio operators, including 350 in the Pacific theater, used Navajo
words for military radio transmissions--a code that neither the
Germans nor the Japanese were ever able to break.
Wartime
experience intensified a sense of Indian identity, reinforced
religious beliefs, and exposed many Indians to life outside the
reservations. After the war, Indians became increasingly active
politically, demanding equal voting rights and an end to discrimination.
In Arizona and New Mexico, Indians who paid no United States taxes
were denied the right to vote, in spite of the 1924 Indian Citizenship
Act that granted Indians full U.S. citizenship. In 1948, both
states ended this denial of voting rights. In other political
activities, Indians resisted the construction of dams that threatened
to flood reservation lands and destroy Indian fishing sites.
The
major postwar innovation in Indian policy was the establishment
by Congress in 1946 of the Indian Claims Commission to compensate
Indians for fraud or unfair treatment by the federal government.
The commission, operating from 1946 to 1978, heard 852 claims
and awarded about $818 million in damages. Indian groups criticized
the Claims Commission for basing awards on land values at the
time of cession and refusing to pay interest or adjust awards
for inflation.
A
renewed sense of Indian nationalism emerged during the 1940s and
1950s. In 1944, Indian leaders from fifty tribes formed the National
Congress of American Indians (NCAI), the first major intertribal
organization. Among the group's primary concerns were protection
of Indian land, mineral, and timber resources and improved economic
opportunities, education, and health for Indians. During the 1950s,
the organization led opposition to a congressional policy known
as termination. In 1953, Congress passed a resolution that called
for the government to transfer federal responsibilities for tribes
to the states. It would also allowstates to assert legal jurisdiction
over Indian reservations without tribal consent. The NCAI effectively
organized opposition to these measures. "Self-determination
rather than termination" was the NCAI slogan. Earl Old Person,
a Blackfoot leader, explained:
It
is important to note that in our Indian language the only translation
for termination is to 'wipe out' or 'kill off'...how can we
plan our future when the Indian Bureau threatens to wipe us
out as a race?
Many
Indians criticized another postwar government program--relocation--as
termination in disguise. Under this policy, begun in 1948, the
Bureau of Indian Affairs provided transportation, job placement,
vocational training, and counseling to Indians who wanted to leave
reservations. As a result of Indian protests, federal policies
began to shift away from termination during the 1960s toward self-determination,
the principle that Indians should exercise autonomy in matters
affecting their welfare and economic well-being.
Indian
Power
In 1970 American Indians were the nation's poorest minority group,
worse off than any other group according to virtually every socio-economic
measure. The Indian unemployment rate was ten times the national
average, and fifty percent of the Native American population lived
below the poverty line. In that year, Indian life expectancy was
just 44 years, a third less than that of the typical American.
Deaths caused by pneumonia, hepatitis, dysentery, strep throat,
diabetes, tuberculosis, alcoholism, suicide, and homicide were
two to sixty times higher than among the whole United States population.
Half a million Indian families lived in unsanitary, dilapidated
dwellings, many in shanties, huts, or even abandoned automobiles.
Conditions
on many of the nation's reservations were not unlike those found
in underdeveloped areas of Africa, Asia, and Latin America. In
one Apache town of 2,500 on the San Carlos reservation in Arizona,
there were only twenty-five telephones and most houses had outdoor
toilets and wood-burning stoves for heat. On the Navajo reservation
in Arizona, which is roughly the size of West Virginia, most families
lived in conditions of extreme poverty. The birth rate was two-and-a-half
times the overall U.S. rate and the same as India's. The average
family's purchasing power was about the same as a family in Malaysia.
The typical house had two rooms; sixty percent had no electricity
and eighty percent had no running water or sewers. The typical
resident had just five years of schooling and fewer than one adult
in six was graduated from high school.
During
the 1960s, Native Americans began to revolt against such conditions.
In 1961, a militant new Indian organization appeared, the National
Indian Youth Council, which began to use the phrase "Red
Power," and organized demonstrations, marches, and fish-ins
to protest state efforts to abolish Indian fishing rights guaranteed
by federal treaties. Native Americans in San Francisco in 1964
established the Indian Historical Society to present history from
the Indian point of view, while the Native American Rights Fund
brought legal suits against states that had taken Indian land
and abolished Indian hunting, fishing, and water rights in violation
of federal treaties. Many tribes took legal action to prevent
strip mining or spraying of pesticides on Indian lands.
During
the late 1960s and 1970s, Indian activists staged a series of
dramatic demonstrations to dramatize the plight of the nation's
Indians. In November 1969, 200 Native Americans seized the abandoned
federal penitentiary on Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay.
For nineteen months, Indian activists occupied the island to draw
attention to conditions on the nation's Indian reservations. Alcatraz,
they said, symbolized conditions on reservations:
It
has no running water; it has inadequate sanitation facilities;
there is no industry, and so unemployment is very great; there
are no health care facilities; the soil is rocky and unproductive.
The
activists offered to buy the island for "$24 in glass beads
and red cloth"--the price that the Dutch had paid to buy
Manhattan island.
On
Thanksgiving Day, 1970, the Wampanoag Indians who had taken part
in the first Thanksgiving 350 years before, held a National Day
of Mourning at Plymouth, Massachusetts. A tribal representative
declared:
We
forfeited our country. Our lands have fallen into the hands
of the aggressor. We have allowed the white man to keep us on
our knees.
Meanwhile,
another group of Native Americans established a settlement at
Mount Rushmore to demonstrate Indian claims to the Black Hills.
The
best known of all Indian Power groups was AIM, formed in 1968
by two Chippewas, Dennis Banks and George Mitchell, to combat
poverty and unemployment and protest police brutality. In the
fall of 1972, AIM gained national visibility when it led urban
Indians and traditionalists along the "Trail of Broken Treaties"
to Washington, D.C., seized the offices of the Bureau of Indians
Affairs, and occupied them for a week to dramatize Indian grievances.
In the spring of 1973, 200 Indians occupied the town of Wounded
Knee, South Dakota, site of an 1890 massacre of 300 Sioux by the
army cavalry, and occupied the town for seventy-one days to dramatize
the injustices Indians suffered. They demanded the return of lands
taken from Indians in violation of treaty agreements.
These
militant protests paid off. The 1972 Indian Education Act gave
Indian parents greater control over their children's schools.
To address deficiencies in Indian health care, Congress passed
the Indian Health Care Improvement Act in 1976, while the 1978
Indian Child Welfare Act gave tribes control over custody decisions
involving Indian children. A 1978 congressional resolution on
American Indian Religious Freedom directed federal agencies to
respect traditional Indian religions.
During
the 1970s, tribes asserted great control over their economic affairs.
In 1975, twenty-five tribes with extensive oil and gas holdings
formed the Council of Energy Resources Tribes to negotiate leases
with energy companies.
A series of landmark Supreme Court decisions aided the cause of
Indian sovereignty and tribal self-government. In a 1959 case,
Williams v. Lee, the court upheld the authority of tribal courts
to make decisions involving non-Indians. A 1968 case played a
particularly important role in establishing the principle of Indian
rights. In Menominee Tribe v. United States, the high court ruled
that states could not invalidate fishing and hunting rights Indians
had acquired through treaty agreements.
During
the 1970s, a number of tribes initiated legal suits to recover
land illegally seized by white settlers. In Maine, the Passamaquoddy
and Penobscot tribes sued to recover twelve million acres, nearly
two thirds of the state. In 1980, the Maine tribes agreed to drop
the lawsuit in exchange for an $81.5 million settlement from the
federal government. In 1980, the Supreme Court ordered the federal
government to pay $105 million to the Sioux as payment for lands
in South Dakota that the government seized illegally in 1877.
Court decisions also permitted some tribal authorities to sell
cigarettes, run gambling casinos, and levy taxes.
No longer are Indians a vanishing group of Americans. The 1990
census recorded an Indian population of over two million, five
times the number recorded in 1950. About half of these people
live on reservations, which cover 52.4 million acres in 27 states,
while most others live in urban areas. As the Indian population
has grown in size, individual Indians have claimed many accomplishments,
including receipt of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction by N. Scott
Momaday, a Kiowa.
Although Native Americans continue to face severe problems of
employment, income, and education, they have demonstrated conclusively
that they will not abandon their Indian identity and culture or
be treated as dependent wards of the federal government.
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